The Director as Collaborator, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1Collaboration and Leadership

The collaborative director is, as Robert Cohen and John Harrop put it in their book Creative Play Direction, “first among equals.” In essence, the director seeks to lead the ensemble through a constructive process toward a product (the production) that realizes his or her overall interpretation of the script. To do so, the director tries to create the type of collaboration that works best for each production and ensemble. The director must use his or her judgment and appraisal of the ensemble members’ skills and personalities to find the best collaborative process, which will vary from show to show. It is not my purpose to dictate a specific collaborative process or relationship, but to help you develop the ...